King and Queen
by Kat Lee formerly Pirate Turner
Summary: Can Angel persuade Cordelia that the dress doesn't really matter? Corgel goodness!


Title: "King and Queen"  
Author: Pirate Turner  
Rating: G  
Summary: Can Angel persuade Cordelia that the dress doesn't really matter?  
Warnings: Het  
Challenge/Prompt: Peja's February '09 prompt #1: "My best friend"  
Disclaimer: Angel, Cordelia Chase, and Buffy Summers are © & TM their respective owners, not the author, and are used without permission. Everything else is © & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Cordy, are you sure you want me here?"

"Oh, Angel, don't be silly!" Cordelia admonished with a grin. "You're more than just my boyfriend; you're my best friend! Of course I want you here!"

"I could just give you my credit card and go."

She stopped, frozen in her tracks, and stared at him, her hazel eyes dancing with excitement, but finally, much to his dismay, she shook her head. "As much fun as that would be, I'd still rather have you here with me so that I can get your opinion." Her eyes twinkled mischievously, and her grin grew impish. "You could give it to me any way, you know, just to speed up the final process."

"If I have to stay," he returned firmly, "my credit card's staying exactly where it is."

She pouted but, knowing he wouldn't give in that easily, returned to her pursuit.

A moment skipped between them of Cordelia searching while Angel fidgeted uneasily. "Cordy," he tried again, "I really don't belong here."

"Nonsense, Angel! Men are welcome! They don't usually come unless dragged in here, true, but they're still welcome. No one's going to say a word. Some of them might oogle you a little too much -- you are definitely way, _way_ worth oogling," she admitted, her eyes drifting over his handsome form appreciatively, " -- in which case I may just have to slap their eyes back into their heads. But you're definitely welcome, and if you're not, then your money always is, and besides, I want your opinion."

"My opinion?"

"Of course! Angel," she said, turning around to face him and unconsciously holding a garment up beside her body, as though offering him a taste of things to come, "this is our first dance together! I don't want anybody upstaging us and I want to make sure that we look like the perfect couple we are and, of course, I want your opinion! I always value your opinion. I may not always agree with it, but I always value it. And especially on dresses. I want to knock your socks off, but I also want to make sure that we are matching and the King and Queen of the dance floor." {You may not be able to dance the part,} she added silently, not wanting to hurt his feelings as she paused for a breath, {but you can certainly look it!}

"Cordelia," Angel began, his voice so low that many would have been spooked by it though his beautiful Seer stood her ground, stalking stealthily forward to close the distance between them, "this is not the Prom. I wasn't lucky enough to attend your Prom with you. I should have been there with you, not with Buffy, but that is past. It's behind us now, and Buffy's only a friend. I'm not interested in her that way and -- "

"This isn't about Buffy!" she snapped, her hazel eyes flaring.

He paused, confusion creasing his brow. "Then why the King and Queen comment?" he asked innocently. "I thought only Proms crowned Kings and Queens."

She sighed, her full mouth hovering somewhere between a half-hearted grin and a frown. "It's just an expression, Angel. I didn't think you were still thinking about Buffy. I thought I had finally gotten you over that damn Slayer."

"You have," he was quick to reassure her as he closed the distance between them and stood right before her with barely a breath left between their bodies. The fabric of the dress she was holding brushed against his jacket. "Buffy's only a friend and barely that. You're much more than just my girl," he repeated her earlier words with his twist, "and my Seer and secretary. You're my best friend. You're what keeps me sane through the Demons and -- "

His eyes shifted around to the other shoppers. No one had noticed what he was saying yet, but if he continued, they might. He lowered his voice and shifted tactics slightly. " -- and everything else. You keep me wanting to do the right thing. You give me hope in an otherwise dark world."

As he was talking, he had gently grasped her shoulders and worked his way up, caressing her tender, seductive flesh, to her face. Now he brushed a strand of loose hair out of her eyes, cupped her face, and slightly lifted her head so that he could look directly into her breath-taking eyes. "You save me, Cordelia. Every day, every night, you save me. Just knowing you're waiting for me downstairs with that cup of cinnamon blo -- drink is enough to make me want to get up and carry on, no matter what else is happening. You're the only one for me, and you always will be." He sealed his words with a powerfully passionate and yet simultaneously gentle kiss that left her gasping for air and trembling slightly in his hands.

"As for the dress," he resumed with a slight shrug, smiling into her eyes, "it doesn't matter to me what you wear. You're always the most beautiful, most fascinating creature I've ever had the pleasure of setting eyes upon. If I still breathed, you'd take my breath away every time I looked at you."

She laid her hand, with quivering fingers, against his chest and felt his heartbeat racing, for him at least, and skipping underneath her palm. Her dazzled eyes grew moist with tears; her smile was already as huge as it could possibly be. His right hand covered her own. "No matter what you wear, you'll always be my Queen, Cordelia, my Princess, my heroine, my savior, my love, my soul mate. You are everything that is good and sweet in this world to me, and you always will be."

He pledged his eternal love to her in a kiss that rocked her world and shook her to her very core, and as his wondrous mouth filled her with such enormously good and fluffy feelings and she rose into the clouds of pure elation and ultimate happiness, she vaguely heard the crowd that had grown around them clapping. Her last thought was that what they wore really didn't matter any longer for he would always be her King just as he had told her, and she knew in her joyfully-singing heart, that she would forever be his Queen.

**The End**


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